Meet our team
Management:
Christopher Nixon Cox
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer
Christopher has extensive experience in senior leadership, international relations, and private equity investments. Christopher serves as CEO of Lightswitch Capital, a biotech private equity fund.
Prior to Lightswitch, Christopher served as Vice Chairman of Brightsphere Investment Group, a top global asset manager. Christopher also co-founded OC Global Partners, LLC. A business consulting and advisory firm with strong focus on China and the Middle East.
He serves on the Board of Richard Nixon Foundation. Christopher earned a JD from New York University and AB in Political Science from Princeton University.
Shahryar Oveissi
Co-Founder & Chief Carbon Officer
Shahryar has been actively involved globally developing projects over the last decade around renewable energy, energy efficiency and Agritech.
Previously, Shahryar was an Operating Partner of Rose Capital, a leading Ag private equity firm. Shahryar’s has extensive experience driving value creation initiatives throughout portfolio companies and spent 8 years as an Operating Partner of Pegasus Capital Advisors, a U.S. Middle Market private equity firm that managed $1.8 billion in assets with a focus on sustainability and health/wellness.
Shahryar is also the Co-Founder of OC Global Partners, LLC a business consulting and advisory company with a strong focus on China and Middle East. Shahryar currently serves on the board of Intelligent Earth Group Holdings, Inc. and Todd English Enterprises.
Shahryar has served on the boards of Six Senses Hotels Resorts & Spas, GYRO HSR and ZeroBase Energy. Shahryar graduated from NYU’s Stern School of Business with a B.S. in Information Systems & International Business.
Bo Cui
Chief Financial Officer
Bo has developed experience in Private Equity and Mergers & Acquisitions.
He successively served as Managing Director of China, BrightSphere Investment Group, a $240bn AUM asset manager listed on NYSE, and Director of Direct Investment, CCB International, the Investment Banking and Asset Management arm of China Construction Bank, closing investments and acquisitions in consumer, mining, real estate, financial services, and shipping & logistics sectors.
Bo graduated from Georgetown University Law Center with a JD in Law, and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a BS in Mathematics and Computer Science.
Connor Smith
Associate
Connor has extensive experience in financial analysis and strategic planning. As the former Director of Strategy and Operations at UtilizeCore, a leading enterprise technology company, he oversaw complex operational systems and spearheaded strategic initiatives that fueled the company’s growth.
Previously, Connor worked as an Associate at TMB Partners, a single-family investment group with a focus on real estate and the hospitality industry. Connor was also an analyst at Stifel Financial and Brooks, Houghton & Company where he supported transactions in the industrials, fine chemicals, technology, and consumer products sectors.
Connor graduated with a B.B.A. from the Gabelli School of Business at Fordham University.
Emmanuel Chidavaenzi
Director - Africa
Emmanuel has more than 8 years’ experience in agriculture value chains, community development and financial inclusion sectors working in various capacities including business development, capacity building, project management and financial inclusion.
Emmanuel brings on board local expertise and leverages networks across multiple African countries to get potential partners and clients onboard.
He has previously worked for nFortics and Onango where he played an instrumental role in developing agent banking and micro lending products for mobile money agents as well as improving access to banking and insurance services for disadvantaged communities.
Emmanuel attained his bachelor of Arts Degree from Luther College (Iowa) in 2013 (MIS and Business Management) and is working towards attaining an MBA from Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda.
Advisors:
Dr. Thelma Awori
Former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations
Honorary Consul General, Republic of Liberia
Dr. Awori is a Director of Argali Carbon Corporation and will be actively assisting the company with developing carbon offset projects and partnerships with Women Empowerment Organizations.
Thelma Awori is a Ugandan professor, active feminist, former Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations, and Director of the Regional Bureau for Africa of the UN Development Program.
Dr. Awori served the United Nations for 12 years as Deputy Director for UNIFEM and as Resident Coordinator of the UN System in Zimbabwe. Since 1965, she has been active in the struggle of the Women of Uganda for gender equality; in 2018, she was one of the 10 women recognized for making Uganda proud in various fields of human endeavor.
She is the Founding Chair and Co-President, Sustainable Market Women’s Fund, Liberia (formerly Sirleaf Market Women’s Fund) which has directly and indirectly empowered over 15,000 market women in Liberia.
Casper Van der Tak
Supervising Project Leader
Casper Van der Tak is a Dutch economist with wide-ranging experience. His work in the last 20 years has concentrated on the issues of environment, energy and climate change, including for years as international project director supporting the development of a sustainable industrial development plan for the Chinese State Development Planning Commission, managing and providing guidance to a series of research teams and experts working on different aspects of sustainable industrial development and creating inputs to China’s national 10th Five Year Plan.
In his core field of climate change, Casper is best known for the founding and management of Caspervandertak Consulting – from a single person company to one of the leading developers of Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects, with 168 United Nations registered projects to date. Casper is an acknowledge expert in this field and has been asked to provide expert witness reports to several cases that came before international courts of arbitration.
From 2013-2015, Casper was senior climate technology policy specialist and team leader at Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) Climate Technology Finance Center, focused on introducing climate technologies in policies, planning, and investment pipelines.
From 2015-2018, Casper was responsible for significant parts of the ClimaSouth project dealing with climate change mitigation and finance.
From 2016 onwards, Casper mostly focused on climate finance preparation of projects with a climate angle in mind. He among others supported the raising of US$ 300 million in soft financing from the Green Climate Fund.
Paul Zorner, Ph.D.
Operating Advisor, Agriculture &
Alternative Fuels
Paul has served as a senior manager or executive of multiple organizations operating to increase rural crop diversity and productivity; improve the nutritional content of food; and through more productive agricultural systems to increase the economic stability of rural agricultural communities. Paul has served for the past 34 years as Adjunct Professor of Horticulture and member of the Graduate Faculty at North Carolina State University. He also is Associate Editor of the Journal Industrial Biotechnology where he focuses on agricultural innovation and outreach; is Chair of the Governing Board of the Alternative Fuels and Chemicals Coalition; serves on the Board of Godavari Inc (the US subsidiary of Godavari Biorefineries, Ltd; serves on the Governing Council of the K.J. Somaiya Institute of Applied Agricultural Research; serves on the Dynamic Sustainability Lab Advisory Board at Syracuse University; on the Advisory Board of Plenty Ag; The Advisory Board of Netafim and member of the Resource Innovation Institute Water Circularity Working Group.
Paul received his undergraduate degree from Lewis and Clark College (Ecology and Secondary Education) and his Ph.D. in Botany and Plant Pathology from Colorado State University where he worked on development of cropping systems for dry-land agriculture.
Anthony Zolezzi
CEO, UX Health
Over the last 30 years, Zolezzi has worked to improve our food supply through organic agriculture, supporting small family farms, and cleaning up the planet through recycling remediation businesses and initiatives.
In 2018, Zolezzi was named CEO of TwinLab, a 50-year-old nutraceutical company. Zolezzi eventually left to pursue broader reaching initiatives within the health and wellness landscape.
Zolezzi and his colleagues recently formed UX Health, a start-up plan to build a platform on which personalized treatments and products will reside. He hopes to improve healthcare by concentrating on products such as personalized cancer treatments, personalized diagnostics, product and lifestyle protocols for pain, depression and anxiety.
MK Kerrigan
CHAIRWOMAN & CO-FOUNDER MANA PACIFIC
MK has deployed microgrid and operational energy systems in some of the most remote regions in the world. For the past decade, MK has been mentored by some of Polynesia’s finest, including Pono Shim, who transformed the Oahu Economic Development Board by insisting on advancing critical social issues.
MK is President of MK Advisors and Former VP of ZeroBase Energy, leading multiple entrepreneurial endeavors in sub-Saharan Africa, and working to solve critical issues facing remote communities in the Pacific, Caribbean, and Latin America.
MK began her career in humanitarian aid, working frequently in the developing world. For the past decade, MK led the development of advanced energy solutions that meet the mission of U.S. military, security and peacekeeping forces that are operating beyond secure supply lines. By opening up new markets with creative capital, this work quickly led to border security in support of national security interests; economic development efforts through small business models at the last kilometer; and in developing regions and markets.